Collapse of tribal honour leaves western women in the firing line

The Taliban's flouting of unwritten rules protecting women aid workers in Afghanistan demonstrate that all bets are off

British aid worker Linda Norgrove with her parents John and Loma
It used to be thought that women aid workers — and indeed journalists — were
safer than men in Afghanistan.

“They wouldn’t kidnap a woman,” was a common assertion in expatriate watering
holes such as the Mustafa and Gandamak hotels in Kabul.

The belief was that even among militants, the tribal Pashtun honour code of
Pashtunwali and simple respect for women meant that they would not be
harmed.

When Bettina Goislard, 29, a French United Nations official, was murdered by
Taliban in Ghazni in November 2003 and Clementina Cantoni, an Italian aid
worker, was kidnapped in Kabul in May 2005, these were regarded as isolated
attacks.

Now the death of Linda Norgrove just two months after that of Dr Karen Woo,
another British aid worker, has shown that this is not the case.

Nobody thinks the Taliban are deliberately targeting women. It is more that in
today’s Afghanistan, all bets are off.